Transcelerator

Transcelerator is a Paratext plugin that adds a feature to help with comprehension checking. If you’ve ever looked at the lists of English questions that can be asked to test the quality and clarity of a Scripture translation and wondered how to translate them all into the language you are translating into, Transcelerator is for you! It helps to semi-automate this process in three ways: First, Transcelerator uses information from the Paratext Biblical Terms tool to help translate biblical terms and proper names. Second, as you translate questions, Transcelerator gradually “learns” common phrases — you just have to confirm the translation and move on. Finally, it creates a printable script that can be used to conduct a comprehension checking session. Check out the features of Transcelerator.

Comprehension Checking

Speed up the process of preparing comprehension checking questions for your translation project.

Engage the Community

The use of Transcelerator can help translation teams ensure adequate engagement of the language community early enough in the process to collect usable feedback on the clarity and quality of the translated Scriptures.

Easy Collaboration

Because Transcelerator is a Paratext plugin, when you use the Send/Receive feature to share Paratext project data, all of Transcelerator's data is included as well. This makes it easier to work as a team!

My aim with Transcelerator is not just to get the questions rapidly translated, but to take the drudgery out the work. The computer helps you do that work efficiently - producing a neat checking script which can be administered well, in order to improve the translation. For us, it has certainly met an important need. And from what I hear, there are many others who appreciate what it can help them do.
Mark Penny, Linguist

Common questions

Who can benefit from Transcelerator?

Transcelerator can be used by any Bible translation team that:
• Uses or wants to use an existing list of comprehension checking questions (primarily from the article Questions for Testing Translations in Translator's Workplace) as a basis for preparing checking questions. If you have a different set of questions that you would like to use instead, it might be possible. Please use the contact form to request special help with that.
• Uses Paratext to draft the translation.
• Would benefit from a printable script to use in checking sessions (note: Transcelerator’s raw data is XML, so it is also possible to use this in other ways.)
• Has one or members proficient enough in English to use it as a source language for translation of comprehension checking questions.

Can Transcelerator be used to check Deuterocanonical books or other non-Scripture material?

No, the built-in checking questions are for Scripture references in the Old and New Testaments only, and various aspects of the navigation and biblical terms lookup assume Scripture material.